John has diverse experience of life and a successful career in the foreign service and business. He was concerned about the direction New Zealand was taking and decided to support Don Brash and the National team. He has been campaigning full time for National since…
Brian Connell, 46, is a farmer and former international business consultant. After graduating with a BA in History and Geography from Massey, and studying for a Diploma in Teaching, he became a primary, then a secondary school teacher for several years, following which he joined…
Another of New Zealand's proud firsts: we were the first to give women the vote in national elections. Clearly as a society we've made huge progress in the last 114 years - New Zealand's even now got a Ministry dedicated to furthering Women's issues to…
Arrrrg, the starrrrs must be aligned. Not only is it international talk like a pirate day and a day of significance to Pastafarians worldwide but it's also the day before the government announces its carbon emission trading scheme. Having not yet seen the scheme the…
Ten Commandments? Nope. Never heard of them. Mr Copeland had insisted on Monday that he did not know what was going to be announced at yesterday's press conference called by Destiny Church head Brian Tamaki to confirm the new political party. He also insisted in…
A reader has just alerted us that there's a political discussion raging on a thread over at the TradeMe message boards. Looks like users there aren't so keen to trade Helen and Labour for John and the Nats.
Brian Tamaki's announcement yesterday that he would be deregistering the Destiny Party raised a number of questions, but there's one that just keeps bugging me - Why Was Their Press Release Written Entirely In Title Case?
Today marks the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Labour Government's first state house by Michael Joseph Savage. The aim in 1937 was to build 5000 new homes a year in an effort to rid New Zealand of sub-standard housing. No mention of any…
National's ad campaign in 2005 was assisted by the creative wit of John Ansell a self-described "wordplaying loon". Nicky Hager's 'The Hollow Men & a study in the politics of deception' drew attention to Ansell when it described in some detail his cozying up to…
From The Guardian: It isn't easy being green. You have to turn the thermostat down to a chilly 18C in winter, spend ages taping up draughty windows, eat nothing but muddy parsnips all through February and wear charity shop cast-offs instead of proper clothes. Oh,…
An American doctoral student has found that there may be a silver lining when it comes to higher petrol prices - they might help people lose weight. Perhaps this is the policy solution to fighting climate change and obesity? ;) Courtemanche's study found that a…
Colin Espiner writes in the Press that "Prime Minister Helen Clark has become a polarising figure in New Zealand politics, but voters have yet to make up their minds about John Key, a new poll shows". Hardly a surprise. As far as I can tell…
In a perceptive potshot at the perennial broadcasting gnome, Paul Holmes, Jane Bowron in her Dominion Post 'Televiews' piece of 13 September described the aforementioned wee fella's return to TV One with Whatever happen to.? in unflattering terms. It seems that Bowron is unimpressed by…
Earlier this week I posted on National's attempted inoculation of the "nuclear issue". Chris Trotter's just written a related analysis of Key's comments to the NZ/US Partnership Forum. In it Key states: "I have little interest in debates, either economic or political, that simply relitigate…
One of John Key's first rebranding exercises after he took over the National Party was to dump Wayne Mapp from his position as PC Eradicator and try to distance the party from some of the more reactionary rhetoric that had become its stock-in-trade under Don…
Feeling guilty after watching An Inconvenient Truth? Want to do your bit to help save the planet but don't have the cash to buy a hybrid? (and too lazy to walk or ride a bike?). Perhaps you should consider becoming a "hypermiler". The best of…
Ok. To celebrate The Standard's one month anniversary, and to thank you for visiting dear reader, we're going to run a competition. Forget Deal or No Deal. That's for chumps. Today we're launching New Zealand's hottest online "gameshow" (we use the term liberally) - "Lockwood:…
He's been thieving her policies and now he's thieving her words. When will John Key say something original? Colin Espiner notes that while for days, Key has been baying for O'Connor's blood, yesterday on Breakfast Key did an abrupt about-face. As if to signal what…
A reader just sent me a link to a piece in The Guardian entitled: "First world results on a third world budget". It's an investigation of Michael Moore's claim in his recent documentary, Sicko, that Cuba's health system puts America's to shame on just an…
The LA Times has a story today about Freegans - "a growing subculture of people who have reduced their spending habits and live off consumer waste". I'm probably not quite ready to forage for my food just yet, but the article's a good read. The…
Congratulations to Unite for ending youth rates at McDonalds. Not that you'll get that story from the media coverage, which gives the impression McDonald's just decided to give up youth rates to be nice and fails to even mention the role of union campaigns like…
a) stays on tour? b) stays on tour until there's political capital to be gained by raising it? Colin Espiner is worth a read: Sure, it wasn't the smartest thing in the world to invite a suspended prison guard along on the trip... But it's…
Did anyone else see the anti-John Key posters in Wellington yesterday morning? It was every National Party spin doctor's worst nightmare: a picture of John Key looking rattled and wrinkled, placed on a black background next to the words that will no doubt come to…
I dropped into the National Party's Kiwiblog again last week and I must say it looks like party insider David Farrar may well be losing his "mojo". I mean really? He's been comparing Helen Clark's policies to "gassing the Jews"? and running lines like: "the…
Twenty years ago this year, the fourth Labour government passed legislation that made New Zealand nuclear free. At the time, the legislation was controversial and was opposed by National. Jim Bolger ever called it "an exercise in futility". In the intervening years, parties opposed to…
Someone just sent me this. Pretty cool site which uses Google Maps to track the US presidential candidates. Map the Candidates is a nonpartisan site that tracks the presidential candidates' campaign stops across the country. Utilizing public schedules provided by the campaigns, we publish an…